Nowadays within every soap, series and drama you will see black actors cast with white ones intimately as lovers. Its prolific and very rarely are wecast together as a black couple.

Regardless of whether there's a clear agenda or not, shouldthe actors who take these roles, now have a responsibilty to either demand they are cast with black partners, or turn down the role completely?

Would this mean that they would be expected to show more responsibility than the rest of us arewithin our work environments?

[align=left]Lemoor: i agree with hyou that be it in the media or films it is becoming rarer and rarer to see a positive protrayal of a Black relationship... and to be honest it has been getting on my nerves for a while now...

But whether actors should turn down work as protest, hmm I think that not only is that unlikely it is untendable...
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Absolutely no responsibility whatsoever

The script writers, the executives, the producers etc, they are the ones who have the responsibility

Its the token theory: Shows for white audiences only have one black person in it, so they either make that person a one dimesional character - no family, no background - or they give them whitey.

The viewers have ultimate responsibility. If you don't like what you're seeing, don't just sit there gawping - turn it off!

I'm seriously considering buying a projector so that I can stop paying tv license. Giving my money to the BBC really really irks me.

CashMoney wrote: I think these writers who are mostly white, write from their experiences. Chances are they're more likely to be friends with that one Black person that has all white friends and boyfriends/girlfiends than to have contact with a group of regular Black people that have black friends and boyfriends/girlfriends. Basically, because these writers are white they will never have the insight into your 'average' Black person's life (including being around Black couples that we take for granted) so their work will never reflect us properly.

I think we'll only see a change when there are more Black scriptwriters who will produce more realistic work but until then we have to make do with whites(and them funny Black people!) who use their limited experiences and good old stereotypes!

That is correct.



RESS has launched another enquiry.

Experience has shown that enquiries are more effective and have more impactthan most people would everimagine.

Do African (Black) actors have a responsibility?

Yes, of course they do!!

If you have an arena, in which you are allowed to express ideas, an ideology, an image or social perspective, to millions of people, then you have the ability to influence, and anything you do in this arena is overtly political.

Would we allow the koon/negro imitating African actors of previous decades to mass "entertain", not onlyour people, but others who we have to live, work and struggle with today? Of course not!! So why should grossly overpaid modern-day African Actors, use the excuse that "its only a job?"

In the past we witnessed: Africans running terrified through Jungles, while the great white Tarzan, kills lions, tigers and alligators before breakfast; the shuffling servant, bug-eyed and pitiful in submission, who dutifully praises his white employer and wife for allowing him the pleasure of imitating some housebound canine, are images that were allowed into the minds of millions worldwide, not to "entertain", but to give legitimacy to a world that had murdered millions of Africans on the myth that we were the least of all humankind.

Many Africans, were happy that we had Actors who were allowed to play these parts - THIS WAS SEEN AS PROGRESS. Being Black means you had no life, history B.C (Before Columbus). Acting as some Black buffoon, then, may be progress, within this warped context.

Africans are a people with history, culture and dignity.Making sure that we and our enemies pay due respect to our humanity has always been core to our lives and politics, especially in Diaspora; something we had little choice over.

Negro actors, what was wrong in the past about their profound contradiction, remains wrong today, and will still be wrong tomorrow.

The funnything is, the portrayal of the African family was pretty muchnormal back in the day. In 2007 the best we get to see is Lewis on The Bill with his mixed race girlfriend.

I'm sure African British actors aren't stupid and know full well what's going on, but I just don't think they have the guts to speak up.

To be honest I really dont think a lot of the Black "british" actors really give two hoots about whether they arecoupled up with another black person. Im sure the majority of them in their personal lives are shacked up with wazungu's, so to them its their reality and they are merely re-enacting on screen. Art imitating life as it were. The only realstic black coupling I can remember in recent times is Kwame Kwei-Armah (sp) and Comfort from Casualty.

As annoying as Chelsea's character is in Eastenders but is it me but does every man that goes out with her use her and always has another chick on the sidethat he really likes?! ie grant now shaun

Whereas in America you will have black men publicly standing up saying they will not do inter-racial love stories/couplings because they feel they have a responsibility to the sisters. Especially if previously in all black on black relationships they were in were unsuccessful then they shack up with a grey and they find utopia e.g Eriq Lasalle from ER back in the day.

@PH, could have sworn it was BP with that sig pic you have now got!lol

blackbutterfly182 wrote:


I agree with what you said to start with. There's something about black people getting envolved in those acting/television/celebrity circles.

There's no way that we can break the British television institution with our black family and well being. Won't happen. Here this: can you imagine all of the topics and issues they'd have to address and wrestle with if they wanted to successfully and realistically portray a ''good'', progressive, strong,YOUNG black coupleon British television ?!

blkhide

What ! Are you crazy ?! Get out of here !

That's too much of a threat to us.

...a few years ago the bbc aired a show about a token afro-carib, British family....the family were the most vacuous, superficial, white-dipped in chocolate pastiche of what writers thought a family should be like not what is was like, it was dropped after a few episodes ...the overwhelming majority of soap writers are white the few 'ethnic writers that are present' feel compelled to perpetuate stereotypes to sell themselves....peace and harmony doesn't sell: according to whites...does any one remember the Desmonds ?